Los Angeles is having a fierce heat wave and it’s hot, hot, hot here. Last night, at 8pm, it was 98 degrees. So I’m making something cool and peanuty and crunchy for lunch – a cold noodle salad with peanut sauce and vegetables. This is a colorful, refreshing salad featuring cold noodles, a light peanut sauce and lots of fresh, crunchy vegetables.

The peanut dressing is a light sauce with a hint of sesame oil, rice wine vinegar and soy sauce. It’s not a heavy, thick sauce – it lightly coats the noodles. The vegetables are crunchy and cool – bright green edamame, pale green cucumbers, red peppers, orange carrots and green scallions – they’re a colorful bunch. I carefully sliced the cucumber, red peppers and carrot as thin and evenly as I could – I was going for matchstick thin slices – and tried to keep them roughly the same size and length. A sprinkle of chopped peanuts at the end adds some additional crunch and a little more peanut flavor to the salad.

A couple of notes:

After cooking the noodles, you’re going drain them in a colander and then rinse them under cold water to cool them off. If for some reason you leave them for a bit and they stick together – no worries – just rinse them again under a little cold water and they will all magically unstick.

You want to toss the cold noodles first with the peanut sauce. Add a little bit of sauce at a time as you toss so all the noodles are evenly coated. Once all the noodles are covered in the peanut sauce, add the vegetables and give it a final toss. Make sure to use a large bowl so you have lots of room for all the ingredients.

You can use smooth or chunky peanut butter for the dressing. I used a natural chunky peanut butter.

I left the white part of the scallion out since I feel it’s too strong and I wanted the peanut flavor to shine through. So only use the green part of the scallions.

When you pulse the peanuts (to add as a topping) in the food processor – be careful not to process too long – otherwise you’ll end up with peanut butter.

This cold noodle salad with peanut sauce and vegetables is great the next day. If you’re refrigerating it for any length of time – keep the chopped peanut topping separate – they don’t refrigerate well with the sauce – they lose their crunch.

Cold Noodle Salad with Peanut Sauce and Vegetables

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A cool, refreshing salad with cold noodles, a light peanut sauce and crunchy vegetables.

Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 6 mins
Total Time: 26 minutes
Yield: 2 to 4 1x

Ingredients

Scale

8 oz of thin pasta – I used thin spaghetti – cooked as per box instructions.
1/2 cucumber – peeled, seeded and thinly sliced
1 carrot – peeled and thinly sliced
1 small red pepper – seeded and thinly sliced
3/4 cup of shelled edamame beans – I used fresh ones from Trader Joe’s
3 thin scallions – green part only – sliced thinly
2 tbs peanut butter – chunky or smooth is okay
2 tbs dark sesame oil
1 tbs light soy sauce
1 tbs rice wine vinegar
1 tsp honey
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tbs water
1/4 cup peanuts – dry roasted or blistered peanuts

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Instructions

Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain in a colander and rinse under cold water and set aside.
Slice the cucumber, carrot and red pepper into thin matchstick shapes all roughly the same size – set aside.
Slice scallions thinly and set aside.
Measure out edamame and set aside.
Add peanut butter, dark sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, honey, red pepper flakes and water to a small jar. Shake vigorously until combined.
Pulse 1/4 cup of peanuts in a food processor until they are finely chopped.
In a large bowl, add cold pasta. Toss with peanut sauce – a bit at a time – until all combined. Add all veggies to the pasta with peanut sauce and toss to combine.
For each serving, sprinkle a little bit of chopped peanuts on top.